Double Blind

It was an unfortunate incident and it is dangerous to write anything relating to incidences like this, but I will give it a stab anyway since I’m not a person to shy away from controlled risks. Note that this is all conjecture and guesswork based off of the readings that I have done on the internet.

The media coverage on television has been sensationalized beyond belief, but it’s still possible to get objective information through the internet. For example, I have no idea how they got it, but the Smoking Gun got a copy of a play that the guy scripted. It’s too easy to make sweeping generalizations on the basis of a single play, but it does give some insight to a person that was reported to have said very little.

I think the shooter was clearly an extreme introvert that had a case of undiagnosed bipolar disorder. If he was extroverted (or mildly introverted) and bipolar, he would have been “discovered” a long time ago.

I think the police will be able to find a significant amount of evidence that will help uncover more of the story on the shooter’s computer. He was likely systematic enough to keep records of a lot of transgressions in his life. However, he might have been systematic enough to do a secure deletion of relevant materials on his system. I would love to get an image of the shooter’s hard drive. He was smart enough to file off the serial numbers from the guns, but did leave the receipt for one in the bag, which attempted to say something.

I think “Ismail Ax” was random. It was probably a character he conceived of in one of his makeshift plays that he ran in his head.

I don’t think he had a good relationship with his parents. I only think this had a partial effect on his psychological condition.

I also don’t think that he had any social connections with anybody that he shot up – I know on the Drudge Report they had a picture of the first girl he shot and questioned whether he had a relationship with this person. I don’t think this is the case. There were reports of him taking pictures of women and apparently “stalking” the girls entering his dorm (those ones were seeing roommates) but I don’t think he would know how to pursue it.

I think the true nature of this event was completely random. People will try to make rationalizations to try to “prevent” these types of incidents, but inherently random events are just that, random. This will result in a lot of people going insane to try to answer the question “Why?” but that’s the brutal nature of randomness – it is truly without order.

Politically speaking, I project the following ramifications (the first two are really obvious, so I won’t analyze them):

Advocacy of Gun control

Advocacy of Concealed-carry gun licenses

An emphasis on educators to “report” people that are “suspicious” or have “disturbing writings” or thoughts. Essentially what this will mean is that anybody that has thoughts remotely relating to violence, these people will likely be apprehended by authority figures and interrogated on their “thoughts”.

Vilification of introverted people or people that just don’t like talking. The only reason why this guy managed to get through the system so far to this point is that he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.

An instant closure of a campus whenever there is a shooting. I actually thought the decision by Virginia Tech administrators to not close the campus for the day after the first two shootings was a very pragmatic decision given the information they had to work with. However, they will likely get sued for it, when the real situation could only be seen in retrospect.

The policy of getting students to shut themselves in rooms whenever there is somebody mass murdering people with guns nearby. There is information that needs to be released on how the shooter did the killings, but apparently whenever he went into a room, he unloaded three rounds into each person and this would be relatively easy to do if they were standing near or behind their desks.

Some form of labelling to young people that voluntarily check themselves into mental institutions. If anybody suspects that they have a mental problem, chances are they will be “tracked” and have certain rights foregone because of it. In other words, it’s highly likely that nobody will be voluntarily checking themselves in if policies are pursued that will more or less punish people that believe that they have a mental illness.

Oddly enough, I don’t think the fact that the guy was a foreign national will play too much into the equation.

My condolences to those that were affected by this event.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 18th, 2007 and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.